


Fourteen

by x_los



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-19
Updated: 2008-03-19
Packaged: 2017-11-17 12:05:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/x_los/pseuds/x_los
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They were sleeping together at eight. In the literal ‘sharing a bed’ sense. "</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fourteen

**Author's Note:**

> sanestlunatic , who made the picnic bit intelligible and is responsible for the crackalicious expanded section on Koschei's other dreams. Thanks!

Title: Fourteen

Author: x_los

Rating: R

Pairing: Theta/Koschei

Summary: "They were sleeping together at eight. In the literal ‘sharing a bed’ sense. "

Beta:  , who made the picnic bit intelligible and is responsible for the crackalicious expanded section on Koschei's other dreams. Thanks!

A/N: For the    [ Academy Relationship Challenge](http://community.livejournal.com/best_enemies/1858.html)

 

# Fourteen

  


  


They were sleeping together at eight. In the literal ‘sharing a bed’ sense. Technically all the privileged little time-lords-to-be in the Academy were allotted their own beds, but on the first night Theta crawled into his. 

“I’m cold,” he’d offered, by way of explanation, but when their skin touched as Theta spooned into him Koschei had detected not so much cold, which felt light violet and hard, as fear, which felt burnt orange and mushy. Theta wanted his sisters and his parents. Theta had stared into the Vortex and had not liked what he’d seen.

Koschei, though he’d not admit it, could sympathize. He had been terrified himself by looking into the same hole in the world scant hours earlier. Now in the dark the things he’d seen threatened to come creeping out from the space between the bed and the wall, from the pauses between beats of the sinuous thread of noise adulterating the silence of the night. 

He wanted his reasonable, fair-minded mother to tell him it was all right, to explain the operant principles behind what had happened to him, and give him something to make his head stop aching. But he was fine. The aching beat from the Vortex would go away if he just toughed it out, he swore to himself, and why should he even mention it when Theta had yet to complain? 

His headache hadn’t faded at all the next day, and he ducked into the medical ward in the morning to have it dealt with. The nurse told him he was imagining things, and, when he glared at him with surprising venom for someone so young, that it was a psychosomatic reaction. 

“Is it common? Do a lot of people feel like this afterwards?” He made his voice sharp and demanding so it wouldn’t tremble, because it hurt, and the pain relief meditation had done nothing, and the simple chemical pain blocks had done nothing, and there should be a cause and a remedy for anything real, and he hurt so it must be real, and he was getting scared. 

“No, normally children aren’t terribly affected for any length of time afterwards. They tend to seep it off, forget what they--” the nurse paused, putting a hand to Koschei’s temple, “Would you allow me?”

Oh he hated letting the adults in like that, like it was their prerogative, but his head felt like a resonance chamber, and even being touched by a stranger was better than this. He nodded, grudgingly.

“Nothing,” the nurse said, drawing back a moment later, “There’s nothing unusual in there. Get some rest, you’ll feel better. You’re young, hardy, you’ll snap back.”

And seething, because it wasn’t _nothing_ , he wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t crazy and he wasn’t a gibbering, histrionic infant, he went back to their room and tumbled into their bed. Not bothering to undress, he waited for Theta to come back from the orientation he was excused from attending on account of his ‘imaginary’ post-initiation trauma. 

Theta hadn’t bothered to push the two beds together, had just used all the linens on this one, turning his nondescript standard issue single into something that actually looked comfortable. Good. They could be close.

  


***

  


                Neither boy shook up the arrangement afterwards because there didn’t seem to be any problem with it. So what if their classmates would have thought it strange if they’d known? Theta and Koschei were already marked as odd due to their brilliance, their willingness to misbehave and their closeness. They didn’t exactly pale at the thought of being exceptional. But after about six years Koschei became aware of a development that would make maintaining the status quo rather hard. He winced. _Difficult._ It would be _difficult_. 

                Koschei made a habit of pressing Theta into the front of him while they slept. Theta had outstripped Koschei’s growth, which would have made the position awkward if Theta hadn’t learned to curl into Koschei in such a way that his height presented no issue. Koschei was a restless sleeper, but no matter how he twisted in the night, pulling Theta with him as he moved, the other boy managed to maintain their relative positions with a kind of doggedly loyal muscle-memory.

                Theta was even in Koschei’s dreams, which was really to be expected. They spent nearly every moment together, waking or sleeping—why shouldn’t they be together here, too? Koschei didn’t mind. 

In Koschei’s dream one night in midsummer the light was golden-curled like old paper. They were eating a picnic on the mountain that overlooked the sea and their parents had wandered down to the shore to observe something—his mother’s slender, red-nailed hand pointing out something on the horizon to Theta’s mother Verity, who shaded her eyes with her palm. Verity’s husband had his arm slung around her shoulder and was laughing at something. 

They were busy. They would not turn around.

                Back on the spread out blanket Theta flopped down. His hair was bright yellow against the deep blue of the fabric. Theta reached out and pulled Koschei down by the neck, fingers weaving through the hair at the nape. 

                In the dream Koschei laid, his arms on either side of Theta’s shoulders, and breathed down on him, inches away from his face. Their wide eyes were fastened on each other’s. He could feel Theta exhale, feel the air brushing his skin. Theta’s eyes were wet and sun-struck like the ocean, and no one would turn around, and no one would know.

                “Do it,” Theta whispered, challenging, coy, biting his lower lip with his precise little teeth.

                Koschei tentatively lowered his mouth to Theta’s, sealing them, like he’d seen adults do in the plays their parents took them to see in the Capitol. Theta made a little noise, a sort of mumbled _oh_ , and it was so good it hurt.

                With a jerk, Koschei woke up, agitated. His motion threw Theta off, who moaned, low and unquiet, at the disturbance. The sound pierced the torpid, humid air and Koschei shivered with a want he didn’t understand. He could hear blood in his ears, pounding, urging him towards an action he couldn’t comprehend in a language comprised of four staccato beats and the painful ache low in his stomach. 

He took a bath and went back to sleep, lying on the edge of the mattress, turned away from Theta. But in the morning he woke up in the middle of the bed, curled around the other boy as usual. Theta squirmed around in the circle of Koschei’s arms to face him and began his typical morning patter about the day’s activities. His lips were lax from sleep, and his lashes heavy. 

Koschei carefully arched his hips back, away, so that Theta couldn’t feel the damning evidence. They were adolescents now, right? Adolescents got things like this all the time; it was something they’d both have to deal with. Oh god. He imagined them both dealing with it together. His best friend’s mischievous, encouraging smile and the tip of his tongue sticking out of his mouth like it did when he concentrated—

“Koschei?” Theta asked, his new-changed voice gravelly, “Are you even paying attention?” 

Koschei swallowed. 

“I—”

“Yeah, Kosh?”

“I—um—I have to take a shower. Urgently. Excuse me.” He squirmed out of Theta’s grasp like a greased weasel and shot into the bathroom as fast as a boy walking slowly due to a newly-discovered physiological impediment and an ardent desire to conceal said problem could possibly be expected to manage.

Under the cold stream he willed the confusing stiffness—biologically comprehensible, but experientially alien—to go away. Slowly, sullenly, it did.

  


***

The next night he dreamed of Ushas telling him he’d missed the bi-decimal exams and that now he’d have to scurry around welding time-pockets together to fuel a black-market stream recovery device which would allow him to jump back in time and take the test. It was enormously tedious, but he had to do it if he ever wanted to make it into the next forum. Ushas kept critiquing his technique and shaking her head, moaning over how she couldn’t for her lives fathom how he’d managed to miss the exam initially. 

He woke up annoyed with her and deliberately snubbed her at lunch, not mollified by the knowledge that she hadn’t actually done anything. She’d rolled her eyes at Koschei’s unpredictable moodiness and huffed off to complain about her advanced biology lecturer to Theta, who was better at making appropriate sympathetic noises anyway.

The next dream Koschei could remember was several nights later. Theta and Drax were starting up an all-ukulele musical act, but since they’d failed to properly instruct Koschei and Ushas in the ukulele arts, they would have to accept Ushi on tambourine and Koschei on the drums. There was some trouble about getting booked he really couldn’t remember the next day. 

The weird thing, he thought as he shaved his recently arrived facial hair, carefully omitting the fuzz at his upper lip (he was trying to grow a moustache), was that none of them even really liked Drax. He just sort of hung around. Koschei couldn’t imagine why he’d dream that Drax would be in lead-ukulele position opposite Theta when he was the clear choice for the role. 

The night after that he dreamed of sinking into Theta, who was warm and willing and who opened under Koschei’s touch, and his mind was an anemone, bewildering and alien and lovely. 

“Is this all right?” he asked in the dream, hearing his hearts pounding as if from far away, “Can I be here?”

“I want you here.” Theta answered, his mind trembling through Koschei’s, slow and soft, as if being stirred by unseen currents. And then Koschei was in his body as well as his mind, and he didn’t know what to do but he knew what he wanted and he knew Theta wanted it too, wanted _him,_ so he just—

He just woke up thrusting into the cleft of his innocent, unsuspecting best friend’s ass, apparently. He stilled as he became aware of what he was doing. One of his hands was splayed on Theta’s chest, possessive, the other curled under Theta’s body and anchored to his hip, pinning him to his own over-heated flesh.

With infinite gentleness he pulled his arm out from under Theta. Lifting his hand from Theta’s chest seemed to be the harder task. There was a strange magnetism to that slim body, and detaching his skin from Theta’s was an exercise of will. As he pulled away Theta pushed back into him, adding pressure to his aching erection, and he wanted so much to wake Theta up and make him respond to the promises of his body that he had to get up, right now, before he embarrassed himself. 

He slid out of bed. It was morning, Theta would wake up soon. He had to hurry.

Koschei staggered to the bathroom, locked the door and took himself in hand. He’d done this a couple times before, experimentally, but never like this, never fueled by such urgent craving. He tried to imagine what exactly they’d be doing if he had his way, more aroused by his ideas than confused and perplexed by the wishes that had seemed so bizarre only weeks ago. He knew it would be pleasant if Theta took him in his mouth, so he sort of imagined it feeling like his hand did but wetter and warmer, and Theta would want to do it for him, and he’d look up at him with respect, no, with adoration, and it’d be—

“Koschei?” Theta rapped on the door. “You alright in there?” Koschei started, but Theta saying his name didn’t hurt his progress, not at all. He wanted to respond with ‘coming, in just a bit,’ but Koschei avoided hubris where he could.

“Koscheiiiii,” Theta whined expansively, “Come on Kosh, open up. I need in.”

Oh now _there_ was a thought.

“Oh _Koschei_.” So breathy in his exasperation he might have been begging. And that did it, actually.

“Just a minute,” Koschei sang out sweetly, wrapping a towel around himself and, as he washed off his hands and cock, splashing some water on his hair and torso to make an excuse of just having showered look believable.

He was not going to molest the object of his affections in a somnambulant fit. He was not going to be baffled by, much less afraid of, his own desires. Koschei was going to take the intelligent, proactive approach to this that he took to everything else. He swung open the door.

“Would you like to enter into a relationship with me?” Koschei tried for a bright, authoritative tone, one that would suggest what an absolutely splendid idea had just occurred to him and how silly Theta would be to not accept it. 

“Don’t we already have a relationship?” Theta, hands on either side of the doorframe, body dangling forward into his best friend’s personal space, was clearly not catching his drift.

“A romantic relationship,” Koschei clarified, then went on, half out of a desire to define terms and half out of a need to discuss what he was currently fixating on. “There would be kissing. And other things. We’d be together, I mean.”

“Well aren’t we?” Theta seemed genuinely confused. “I mean we act like the older kids who’re couples, so I sort of assumed we were, and that it didn’t need said because it was pretty obvious, and that we were going to get around to the other bits in good time? Can you really see either of us with anyone else?” 

Now that Theta brought it to his attention, no, Koschei could emphatically _not_ see sharing Theta with some dolt of a classmate, or giving his own time to some lesser person who couldn’t possibly understand anything half as well as Theta did. Other people were, he supposed, fine and good in their own way, but not for _them_. The two suited—no, Koschei frowned, that wasn’t quite it, better to say they belonged to each other.

“Ah. Well. Yes, guess we are then.”

“Good.” Theta gave him a quick kiss on the mouth, closed and chaste. He paused, as if noting that it had gone well, and pressed a firmer kiss to Koschei’s lips, which, conveniently, dropped open in surprise.

“Could we have sex?” Koschei blurted when Theta, looking pleased with himself, came up for some air. Theta studied the question with all due gravity. 

“We’re ready for that, I guess. Only I’m fairly certain we’re supposed to go on Dates first. Mom’s mentioned those.”

“Well what would ‘dates’ entail?”

“Apparently mom was living on earth and dad came to visit her and provide her with some exciting adventures because she was bored and lonely? She and dad ran around in his TARDIS and there was something about mom defending earth and dad doing something impressively clever? And there were monsters, I think. I’m pretty sure that’s how dates go.”

Koschei chewed his lip. “That sounds interesting. Oh, hey, we could go muck about with the Saurians! That’s against the rules and everything! Would that count?”

“I think it would, if we brought a picnic lunch,” Theta concluded, “At least in my mother’s culture dates seem to usually include a food component. You show you’re able to provide for each other by offering to obtain dinner, I think? It’s quite quaint.”

                Koschei thought of his first dream, of that blue blanket the color of Theta’s eyes and gold-yellow hair, of Theta’s soft lips. He did not think of their upcoming thermodynamic relations exam. “Wanna skip class and go now?”

                Theta grinned. “You have all the best ideas. What would I do without you?”

                Koschei kissed him lightly on the mouth, and thought he’d managed it right when Theta’s eyes fluttered closed and Theta’s hands caught at his sides in little jerks. “Be terribly boring,” Koschei concluded, “Now help me steal something from the kitchen to make up a picnic basket with, I’m starving!”

  


***

  


                Theta and Koschei got back to their room after curfew, having ruined a security system to remain undetected. They’d managed to rig up an EMP with equipment garnered exclusively from their pockets, and were still giggling at their own cleverness. Then Theta was tugging Koschei to the bed before either of them could get too nervous and kissing him like he meant it, in a way that made all the embraces exchanged over the course of the day seem tentative. 

Kissing had always seemed relatively straightforward to Koschei: older students embarrassing themselves in corridors trying to eat each other’s mouths, accompanied by great wet sucky noises and waves of self-satisfaction. Gauche, he’d had always thought.

But he’d never guessed there was such a variety of sensation, everything distinct and pleasurable. He could trace the edges of Theta’s lips with his tongue, and even that made him hard. He could open his mouth and let Theta in. He could lick, suck, nip, and everything was strange and bright to him, and then while they kissed he could move his hands down…

“Ouch!” Theta squeaked, frowning. Koschei guiltily lifted his hand from under Theta’s shirt. He tried something else.

“Is that, er, at all good for you?” Koschei blushed through the embarrassing question.

“Um, not as such?” Theta offered honestly. Koschei swore, put his head down on Theta’s stomach. Apparently he failed at nipples. He was good at everything, why couldn’t he _get_ this?

“I want it to feel perfect for you. I want you to want me.” Koschei confessed, stroking the skin beside his mouth in slow circles, watching goose bumps form where his fingers had been. He needed Theta to reciprocate his own desire in equal measure, needed to know that Theta enjoyed touching as much as he did. Koschei wanted to overwhelm the other boy, possess his attention as thoroughly as he himself was captivated. And if he couldn’t make Theta feel the same way he didn’t know that he’d ever be content. It seemed cruel and impossible that he could feel so much and Theta could remain indifferent.

“Kosch,” Theta sighed, running his hands through the other boy’s hair, “I _do_ want you. But sex isn’t going to be perfect right off. It doesn’t need to be. We’ll try a lot of things and figure out what we like, and I’m happy to. I’ll try anything, as long as it’s with you. We’ll figure it out together.”

Koschei, to avoid having to say anything that might reveal how embarrassingly pleased hearing that made him, kissed the skin on Theta’s stomach and was rewarded with more of that hitched breath. Curious, he swept his tongue across Theta’s navel, dipping in. 

“Do that again,” Theta asked, softly. Koschei did, and then drew a line with his lips down the rest of Theta’s stomach, one hand unfastening Theta’s trousers so his mouth could continue downwards, the other doing what he’d tried previously to one of Theta’s nipples but softer this time, brushing delicately with his knuckles and ghosting over the peak with his fingertips. 

“Better?”

“Y-yes, much better.”

Abandoning that in favor of the newly undressed flesh, he wrapped an experimental hand around Theta’s cock. His nail accidentally dug into the skin wrong, and Theta hissed unhappily, like a cat being bathed. 

“Sorry!” Koschei readjusted his grip. “How’s that?”

“A little harder,” Theta grinned, “and could you kiss me while you-mmph!”

Theta was cut off by an enthusiastic Koschei. 

“Like that?” Koschei panted a bit later. 

“Guh,” Theta offered, eloquently. 

“Wanna do me next?”

“Uh-huh! Mm, _Koschei_.”

“That’s right,” he encouraged, “I think I like it when you say my name.”


End file.
